Jack and Jackie with their kids and grandkids

Jack Looye is a member of the RSC Niagara Region Chapter, as well as the Toronto, Atlantic Chapters and the Great Lake's Chapter. He is a past president of the Great Lakes Chapter. He has also served on the RSC Niagara Region Chapter Board and as a Regional Director for the RSC. He has received the Hybridizer's Award from the RSC and is a frequent panelist at the ARS Breeder's Roundtables. In a word, his life is rhododendrons.

Jackie, his wife and partner, is also a member of the RSC Niagara Region Chapter, as well as Toronto, Atlantic and the Great Lake's Chapters. She is past president, past secretary of the Niagara Chapter as well as past editor of the Rhodo Niagara Newsletter. She was a former Niagara Representative for the National Rhodo Society of Canada. Jackie is a member of the Niagara Horticultural Society in Niagara on the Lake.

Jack has had a long involvement with rhododendrons. He and his wife Jackie run Rhodo Land Nurseries in Niagara on the Lake, Ontario. From the Niagara Chapter website: "A staggering amount of new material goes through this nursery. Jack Looye is one of Ontario's most active breeder of rhododendrons. Jack makes up to 100 crosses a year and his goal is to develop hardy yellows, oranges and reds. He and his wife Jackie are currently evaluating 5,000 hybrid seedlings."

One rhododendron lover influenced Jack more so than any other -- the late Weldon Delp, from Pennsylvania. Weldon did a staggering number of crosses and Jack knew them all. Delp took Jack under his wing and shared his plants with him as a trusted confidant and equal. Jack's hybridizing is based on many of Delp's crosses but he has also gone off in his own direction. Or is it directions? His talks cover many of the new plants from his work. Jack has produced some very good deep blue and purple lepidotes, which are hardy in this area.